Love too much to part with – No-nonsense Chinese Idioms
Well folks, this morning at roughly 9am I saw a tiny bug inside my iPod touch. Yes. I decided to try to open the screen up to remove the little guy however managed to break my device in the process. Needless to say, by lunchtime I had already bought myself a new iPod touch and that is what reminded me of this idiom.
It’s hard to think of a definitive translation in English, but basically it’s used to refer something that your hands can’t part with, because you love it so much.
Some examples:
舊的ipod壞掉之後，我發現我對它愛不釋手（旧的ipod坏掉之后，我发现我对它爱不释手）
jiù de ipod huàidiào zhīhòu ，wǒ fāxiàn wǒ duì tā àibúshìshǒu
After I broke my old ipod, I realised I couldn’t live without it.
我對我的電子琴愛不釋手（我对我的电子琴爱不释手）
wǒ duì wǒ de diànzǐqín àibúshìshǒu
I can’t put my keyboard down.
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Chris
A Scottish computer graduate turned Mandarin addict, Chris (currently a level 67 Frost Mage) has been learning Chinese for the last 3 years while living a free spirit existence in Taiwan. When he’s not pondering over radicals and stroke order, he’s making character frequency lists for fun or illustrating his web comic Horse Dragon Fish.
1 Comment
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There is another phrase that has three same characters as 爱不释手， in different order though. It is 手不释卷。手 (shou3, noun, hand)不(negate word, not) 释 (shi4, verb, release) 卷 (originally a measure word for books, here functions as a noun, books) – Literally it means hand can’t release the books, and it also implies that the person loves the book a lot and don’t want to put it down.
For example, you can say
他非常喜欢那本书，每天手不释卷，天天看，真是爱不释手啊.
He likes that book a lot. Everyday he can’t put that book down from his hand; he read it everyday. He really loves it a lot and can’t put it down.Have a great dragon year!
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